The Beirut explosion happened two days before- a shipload of ammonium nitrate en route in 2013 from Georgia for fertilizer in Mozambique, and abandoned after the Russian cargo ship developed mechanical problems near Cyprus, appears to have been triggered by a nearby fire. If stored for long periods ammonium nitrate solidifies and becomes dangerous. Poor…
Category: The Meeting Place Online Discussion
Black Lives Matter (2)
From “BLACK AND BRITISH: A FORGOTTEN HISTORY” BY DAVID OLUSOGA, (pages 491-6) In June 1946 the British Cabinet Manpower Working Party determined that in order to meet her post war target, Britain would need 940,000 additional workers. By the end of the year they had raised their estimate to 1,346,000. To help fill this enormous…
Black Lives Matter
…. “and so do white lives”, someone will instantly reply. Of course they do, but the point is that when some lives have been valued less, justice demands action to redress that inequality. We may applaud the present government’s intention to “level up” the North (even if we question its analysis and proposals), and no-one…
July 2020 First Thursday
Two matters in the news occupied most of our discussion: The impact of the Beijing Government’s actions on Hong Kong. Is it that Beijing is determined to subvert the 1997 One Country, Two Systems agreement with Britain and control Hong Kong- or is it a difference of interpretation of what that agreement meant? Since Deng…
Piketty’s proposals
The last mailing summarised Thomas Piketty’s account of how we got into our present position. This looks at his final chapter, where he puts forward proposals for a better economy and society in the future. He says: “New forms of social ownership will need to be developed, along with new ways of apportioning voting rights…
Thomas Piketty: Capital and Ideology
My Lent reading this year has been nothing explicitly “religious”: it was Thomas Piketty’s new book “Capitalism and Ideology”, published in French last Autumn and translated into English earlier this year. Though not religious or “spiritual” I would argue that it is at least as theological as some other books I was urged to read….
21st Century Endless War
Wilf Wilde at Wymington, January 18th, 2020 YEMEN, ARABIA AND THE MIDDLE EAST: A POST CHRISTMAS REFLECTION ON EMPIRE AND OIL YEMEN’S SAUDI PROPAGANDA STORY I have been working on Oil, Empire and the Middle East for the last decade, especially since the so called Arab Spring of 2011. I have wanted to talk on…
The Chapel congregation
Wymington Chapel has a congregation of about a dozen people, including a small number of children. We meet at 10.00 am on most Sunday mornings During the Coronavirus epidemic, all meetings and services have been suspended until further notice. The Chapel will be open every day from 8.00 am to 6.00 pm for anyone…
For where your Treasure is
“For where your Treasure is….”- a summary of our discussions on “What does the Bible say about Wealth?”: Read More >>